In the wake of the latest round of scandal over Prince Andrew’s past involvement with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced royal’s residence has become an increasingly hot button issue.
Andrew has called Royal Lodge home since 2003, but many are now calling for him to leave the 30-room mansion in Great Windsor Park in favor of a more modest home, particularly in light of his announcement that he will no longer use his royal titles going forward.
While public outrage about Andrew’s residency at Royal Lodge has grown quickly amid revelations that he was in contact with Jeffrey Epstein more recently that he had previously publicly claimed and in light of allegations made against him by his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, in her memoir Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which was published posthumously this week, King Charles has reportedly been pressuring his brother to downsize for some time now.
According to the Mirror, Charles is said to have offered Andrew Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s former Windsor residence, Frogmore Cottage, as an alternative, but Andrew refused.
In 2024, the Daily Mail reported that Charles was threatening to cut ties with Andrew if he wouldn’t move from Royal Lodge—and that apparently included cutting the purse strings to pressure Andrew to leave the property voluntarily.
“As things stand, life at Royal Lodge is set to become increasingly cold and uncomfortable for the duke,” a friend of the King said at the time.
While Charles can’t easily evict his brother from the property due to the “cast-iron” 75-year lease Andrew signed in 2003, the £400,000-a-year upkeep of Royal Lodge is thought to be something Andrew would struggle to pay without some financial assistance from the royal family.
According to the Mirror, Andrew received an allowance from the late Queen before her death, but Charles reportedly ended that arrangement when he took the throne in 2022, leaving Andrew with no clear means of covering the costs of running and upkeep on the pricey property.
“Unfortunately, if Andrew refuses to leave within a reasonable time frame, then the King may be forced to reassess the whole package of support he provides and the duke would be required to fund the lion’s share of his security, accommodation and lifestyle costs all on his own – which, given the sums involved, is highly unlikely to be possible in the long term,” a friend of the King told The Times in 2024. “Everyone is mindful of his well-being, and has his best interests at heart, but there are limits of patience and tolerance.”
Now, amid increasing pressure from all sides to vacate the property, Andrew is reportedly convinced that his brother’s motives for getting him to leave Royal Lodge have more to do with Queen Camilla than Andrew himself.
According to The Telegraph, family friends say Andrew believes the King has an “ulterior motive” in the situation. The paper reported that Andrew and his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, have all “told friends that the King wants Royal Lodge to be the Queen’s base in Windsor should she outlive him” and noted this would be in line with the arrangements that were made for Queen Elizabeth’s mother, who moved from Windsor Castle to Royal Lodge after she became a widow.
While aides for the King reportedly “flatly deny the suggestion,” the Telegraph report says that Andrew has “nevertheless become fixed on the idea, which surfaced a year ago, that Royal Lodge was being earmarked for the Queen.”
For what it’s worth, however, there’s no indication that Camilla, who the Telegraph describes as “far less grand than Prince Andrew” and “unlikely to want to live alone in such a large residence even for only part of the year,” would even want to live at Royal Lodge if she outlives her husband.
The Telegraph points to Ray Mill House, a property in Wiltshire that she bought with her divorce settlement from Andrew Parker Bowles and still considers her home (it’s where she chose to have her official 78th birthday portrait taken) as the place she’s most likely to choose as her home base in the event of the King’s death.
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